The rebel force turned political party has been observing Martyr's Day every September 20 since 1980.

The Martyrs’ Graveyard in Aizawl. (Source: Express photo by Adam Halliday)
As scores of men and women carrying flowers queued up to lay them at
the foot of a 42-feet black-marble monument topped by a white crucifix, C
Lalthianghlimi stood in the distance, bent over one of the 1,563
plaques commemorating some of those who died during the two-decades-long
Mizo insurgency that ended in 1986.

“At the time, we did not even have a camera. We don’t have a single
photograph of him. But I am overjoyed that this plaque carries his name.
So I come here often,” the 69-year-old woman said, putting her hand on
the plaque that designates it as the final resting place of Zairemmawia,
who died on April 1, 1967.

Lalthianghlimi stands near the granite plaque commemorating her brother Zairemmawia. (Source: Express photo by Adam Halliday)
She explains Zairemmawia was her brother. He was a teenager when he died, she said, “He had not yet come of age.”

The woman from Hmawngkawn, a village 73 kms from Aizawl, was just one
among hundreds of people to attend one of the 17 venues throughout
Mizoram where the Mizo National Front observed Martyr’s Day on Monday.

The rebel force turned political party has been observing Martyr’s
Day every September 20 since 1980, when its cadres were still living in
the jungles fighting for an independent homeland for the Mizos (This
year, the observance of the day was postponed since it fell on a
Sunday).

When the party was in power for a decade between 1998 and 2008, it
built the Martyr’s Graveyard in Aizawl’s Luangmual locality after
consultations with local churches and voluntary organisations.
The 2,660 sq mts complex built almost entirely of white marble is
large enough to host 2,400 granite plaques designating the names,
addresses and date of deaths of those who died because of the
insurgency.

Speaking to those who gathered ​there ​on Monday, MNF leader Vanlalzawma, an MLA and former Lok Sabha
MP, said, “Mizo Nationalism was embodied by these martyrs, who fought
so that the Mizo community did not disappear or was swamped
demographically.”

“Unlike regular soldiers, these men and women had no prospects of
ex-gratia for their families if they died or pensions for themselves if
they lived. But they fought anyway because they were willing to
sacrifice everything,” he said.

Elsewhere in Kolasib town, the MNF’s president and former CM
Zoramthanga said of the deceased, “They were martyrs because they gave
their lives for Mizoram and the Mizo community. The Congress
is the principal attacker of these men and women, and praising the
Congress as the party that loves Mizoram the most is borne out of
shallow thinking.”

In another function at Lunglei town, MNF Senior Vice President and
former state Home MInister Tawnluia said, “We are lucky to have thos​e
who were martyred for the Mizo community. It is extremely hurtful that
there exists some who contemptuously speak of these men and women.”
The MNF and the Congress have been squabbling over the insurgency’s
legacy more and more vehemently in recent years, with the Congress
leadership accusing the MNF’s then leaders as having begun the
insurgency for their personal benefit, causing immense hardship to
ordinary people (victims of the Indian Army’s controversial village
grouping operations) and singling out the insurgency as a principal
set-back for the state’s economy, which remains under-developed with
little industry or private enterprise.

The MNF meanwhile maintains the insurgency secured constitutional
safeguards for the Mizos of Mizoram and gave birth to the state as it is
now (from being a district within Assam before the insurgency years).

​It is not clear exactly how many people lost their lives to the
insurgency but besides the 1,563 dead commemorated at the Martyr’s
Graveyard, an organisation called the Mizoram Martyr Families’
Association lists out 2,186 victims.

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